As a father of three small children I was outraged by the recent Mattel toy recall. All of the toys were made by a contract manufacturer in China. Mattel said Wednesday, August 15th, that it was recalling 1.5 million toys globally and the recall would cost them at least $30 million dollars. The toys that were recalled included many Sesame Street and Nickelodeon characters, including Dora The Explorer backpacks, which my 2 year old daughter plays with often. Also recalled was the ‘Sarge’ character Die-Cast car from the Disney Pixar Cars movie. The ‘Sarge’ car is said to have excess levels of lead surface paint that could harm children. My 5 year old son has this car.
My wife and I buy most, if not all, of our children’s toys at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is the largest toy seller in the United States, with an estimated 45% of the retail toy business. I am of the very strong opinion that Wal-Mart has a social and moral responsibility to do independent testing of products manufactured in China and sold in their stores. China is notorious for low regulations in terms of health and safety standards. If Wal-Mart wants to continue to be the largest retailer in the United States they would be well served to know a little more about the products they sell. It is becoming the norm recently to hear of poor quality products coming out of China. The Mattel toy recall is the most recent problem in a line of bad products. Recently it was tainted dog food and toothpaste that will make you sick, all produced in China.
When will consumers in the United States wake up and smell the lead paint? We are the only thing standing between Wal-Mart and dangerous products made in China. If Wal-Mart thinks it is to expensive to know more about the dangerous products coming out of China then consumers must stand up and demand this from Wal-Mart. This can easily be done by boycotting Wal-Mart until they take a harder stance on poor Chinese manufacturing. Do you think this stance is harsh? Ask a parent of one of the sick children if this is harsh. Or ask a pet owner who lost their family dog if this is an acceptable business practice. If this boycott were to occur, the greedy hands at Wal-Mart would have testers sucking on die-cast cars immediately! Believe me, we would all benefit from this.
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Die cast model cars are just another one of those things that’s gotten better and better with modern technology. There was a time when someone modeling a die cast scale replica had to get in there on a piece of clay armed with nothing but a few metal sculpting tools to scrape and shape. Quite often, scale model sculpting still comes down to that hands on method, but with modern technology, they can also create such precise, intricate details that the end results would’ve been thought to have been the work of witchcraft only twenty years ago.
Take for example laser etching. This technology has been around for decades, but it was prohibitively expensive until recently, so you weren’t likely to see it being used to create souvenirs for race fans.
Today, though, laser etching is cheap enough that you see it being used in pretty much every collector’s market. If you collect coins, you ought to see what they’re doing with the works of Augustus Saint Gaudens these days. His silver dollar designs have been recreated in such glory and detail from the original models that even the first run of the coins would pale in comparison, all thanks to laser etching.
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Every generation has their own diecast models cars. Our parents played with Matchbox cars for the most part. By the time we were growing up, we had Hot Wheels. Some of us are old enough, our kids were playing with Micro Machines back in the eighties. You remember Micro Machines, right? You at least remember the commercials, with the motormouth announcer showing that you could fit a Micro Machine on a single dime. They had great marketing gimmicks at the very least.
For some reason, diecast models cars are one of the few toys that every kid has in common, whether they were 1:32 or 1:64 scale, we all loved playing with them, and we all remember racing them around with other kids during recess. Other kids that we might never have talked to otherwise because we just didn’t have much else in common, but when they broke out the diecast cars, we just had to compare our collections.
For adults, we have brands like First Gear and Johnny Lightning. Truth is, we still like playing with toy cars, but if you go in and buy a bunch of Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars and say “Yeah I’m gonna take these home and play with them, I don’t even have kids!” you’re worried that everyone thinks you’re a nut.
So the appeal of Johnny Lightning and First Gear is that they’re “not toys”, they’re “collectibles”. They’re made to a higher degree of detail, quality and durability, and they really are meant to be collector’s items, but… Let’s admit it already; the reason we’re buying them is to put about half a dozen in a drawer and race them across our desks when nobody’s looking.
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1 18 diecast cars are an incredibly fun hobby to get into, but when you first start collecting, you might feel a little overwhelmed. So here’s a quick guide to frequently asked questions regarding the collecting of 1 18 diecast cars!
Will my diecast collection make me rich?
Probably not. You’re bound to snag something that will, eventually, become a scarcity if you’re a diehard collector, and who knows, you might luck out and make some cash for your retirement fund, but for a real collector, that’s not the point. Don’t start collecting die cast cars unless you want to for fun, not because you think it’s a sound investment.
If all you want is a retirement fund, try buying and selling real estate. You buy die cast cars for your inner child, not for your inner responsible adult!
What should I buy?
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Bike riders have their own enthusiasm, and love to follow the passion of cool riding. From a second person’s perspective, they look stylish, elegant and display power with their raving bikes. With smart accessories motocross, they brandish around the street with cool apparels and gears. So, if you are also looking for the same, then you don’t need to search high and low. Avail the internet service in order to have a peep into some amazing collections of Motocross accessories, as well as interesting off-road gear that will leave you spell-bound.
Gloves accessories
You can search for interesting line up of off-road gear such as gloves which is an important part of riding accessories. Their classic colours like blue, black, red, white etc. can be easily found in men and women’s collection of gloves. Amongst the men’s collection of Motocross gloves, one can have the Accelerator, Adrenaline, GX-AIR, HDX, Scarab, whereas amongst the women’s range of Motorcycle apparel gloves, one can pick some interesting colour combinations like black and pink, silver and black, white, light blue and black and their fusions. One can also get hold of knee sliders that come in only black colour for protection.
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